DS  771  .S74 

Speer,  Robert  E.  1867-1947. 

The  situation  in  China 


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ROBERT  E.  SPEER 


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MISSIONS  AND  POLITICS 
IN  CHINA 

The  Situation  in  China 


A      RECORD       OF 
CAUSE    AND    EFFECT 


BY 


ROBERT  E.  SPEER 


This  article  has  been  republished  from  a  larger 
work,  "Missions  and  Politics  in  Asia,"  as  it 
was  deemed  expedient  to  put  this  chap- 
ter  in    concise    form    for    popular    reading* 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming    H.    Revell    Company 

Publishers  of  Evangelical   Literature 


Copyright,  1900, 
by 
Fleming  H.  Revell  Company. 


Introduction 

This  is  not  a  favorable  time  to  form  a  judgment 
of  China.  The  disturbed  condition  of  the  coun- 
try, the  anxiety  felt  in  Western  lands  as  to  the 
safety  of  their  representatives,  the  heat  of  passion 
aroused  by  bloodshed,  even  in  the  absence  of  dec- 
laration of  war,  combine  to  distort  our  view. 
Yet  every  one  is  interested  in  China  now,  and  many 
will  think  at  this  time  of  their  relations  to  the 
millions  of  this  great  empire  who  will  not  do  so 
in  times  of  quietness. 

The  following  discussion  aims  to  set  forth  the 
situation  in  China,  not  so  much  as  it  appears  in 
any  one  time  of  critical  excitement,  but  as  the  en- 
during factors  of  the  problem  which  China  pre- 
sents have  characterized  it  from  the  beginning  of 
China's  contact  with  the  West,  and  will  continue 
to  characterize  it  for  years  to  come.  The  Taip- 
ing  rebellion  accordingly  has  not  been  introduced. 
Though  a  gigantic  movement,  it  sank  back  quietly 
into  the  gigantic  bosom  of  the  Chinese  people.  It 
was  a  symptom,  however,  of  the  mobility  of  this 
immobile  race,  and  also  in  hard  historic  fact  of  the 

5 


Introduction 

readiness  of  the  Chinese  to  adopt  Christian  doc- 
trine and  to  adapt  it,  also.  The  leader  of  the 
Taipings  was  a  country  school-teacher,  a  Chris- 
tian convert.  As  the  movement  grew,  religious 
worship  was  kept  up  in  the  camp;  the  Sabbath 
was  observed;  the  Scriptures  were  read  and  ex- 
pounded; hymns  and  doxologies  were  sung  in 
honor  of  the  Triune  God,  and  the  multitudes  were 
exhorted  by  their  leaders  to  honor  and  obey  God. 
Hung  Siu  Chuen  soon  had  his  head  turned  by  his 
military  successes,  and  excess  and  fanaticism 
characterized  his  rebellion.  But  still  as  men  think 
upon  it  and  the  way  it  had  broken  with  all  the 
shackles  of  old  thought  and  old  ways  in  China, 
they  wonder  whether  the  West  did  well  in  sup- 
pressing it.  Dr.  W.  A.  P.  Martin  who  lived 
through  the  years  of  the  rebellion  in  China,  can- 
not rid  himself  of  this  doubt.  "  More  than  once, 
when  the  insurgents  were  on  the  verge  of  suc- 
cess," he  has  written,  "the  prejudices  of  short- 
sighted diplomatists  decided  against  them,  and  an 
opportunity  was  lost  such  as  does  not  occur  once 
in  a  thousand  years." * 

Yet  in  "slow-moving,"  "stagnant"  China, 
such  an  opportunity  did  come  again  in  less  than 
forty  years,  in  another  movement,  whose  lessons 

1  A  Cycle  of  Cathay,  p.  142. 
6 


Introduction 

need  to  be  kept  in  mind  in  the  following  discus- 
sion, when  the  Emperor  joined  the  party  of  the 
Reformers,  led  by  Kang  Yu  Wei,  and  poured  out 
during  the  year  1898  edict  after  edict  proposing 
measures  which  were  certain  to  lead  to  the  reno- 
vation of  the  empire.  Railroads  unlocking  the 
whole  land  were  approved.  Factories  and  mines 
were  to  be  promoted.  Social  reforms  were  com- 
mended, and  footbinding  was  attacked  by  Vice- 
roy Chang  Chih  Tung  and  other  officials  all  over 
the  empire.  The  country  was  to  be  opened ;  tem- 
ples were  to  be  changed  into  Western  schools; 
the  right  of  petition  was  extended  to  all;  a  free 
press  was  to  be  encouraged.  The  futile  and  ob- 
solete subjects  were  to  be  eliminated  from  the 
government  examinations  and  that  powerful  en- 
ginery was  to  be  used  to  lift  the  whole  nation  into 
new  life.  But  too  much  had  been  proposed  for 
the  conservative  party  to  endure.  The  influence 
of  the  Western  legations  would  have  sufficed  to 
support  the  Emperor  and  his  advisers,  to  moder- 
ate their  projects  and  to  secure  a  gradual  adop- 
tion of  the  proposed  reforms,  but  that  influence 
was  withheld.1    The  Reformers  fled  or  were  be- 

1 "  The  pity  of  it  is  that  the  foreign  legations,  which  ought  to 
have  jumped  at  the  opportunity,  gave  no  assistance  whatever  to 
the  Emperor  and  his  reforming  friends.  .  .  .  No  one  ever 
expected  that  this  dynasty  could  produce  a  man  so  worthy  to 

7 


Introduction 

headed  or  expatriated,  and  the  Dowager  Empress 
resumed  authority.  Whether  the  Emperor  is 
alive  or  dead  no  Western  man  knows. 

We  have  sown  our  seed  and  we  are  reaping 
our  harvest.  We  preferred  the  Dowager  Empress 
to  the  Emperor,  and  we  are  enjoying  now  the 
spirit  of  reaction  and  bigotry  which  is  congenial 
to  her,  and  the  bitter  consequences  of  its  su- 
premacy. For,  however  ripe  the  poverty  of  the 
people  in  Shantung  through  the  Yellow  River 
floods,  and  their  irritation  at  the  brusque  and  un- 
conciliatory  ways  of  Germany,  may  have  rendered 
the  province  for  the  spread  of  the  Boxer  Move- 
ment, it  could  have  been  suppressed  if  the  Chinese 
officials  had  wished  to  suppress  it.  But  the  West 
had  supinely  tolerated  if  it  had  not  facilitated  the 
victory  of  conservatism  and  hostility  to  foreigners 
at  Peking,  and  local  and  provincial  officials  took 
their  cue  from  the  capital.  Undoubtedly  the 
movement  has  now  gone  far  beyond  the  will  or  de- 
sire of  the  Empress  and  her  less  fatuous  advisers. 
They  fear  the  reparation  which  some  of  the 
European  powers  will  exact  in  the  spirit  of 
vengeance  and  wrath. 

rule,  nor  will  it  ever  produce  another !  Yet  he  seems  to  have 
found  not  one  to  help  him  among  the  foreign  officials  in  Peking. 
Reform  has  no  real  interest  for  them.  The  pity  of  it!" — 
Shanghai  Daily  News,  Nov.  15,  1898. 


Introduction 

And  this  has  been  one  of  the  blunders  we  have 
made  from  the  beginning  in  dealing  with  China. 
We  have  not  observed  equity.  Would  any  civ- 
ilized state  have  tolerated  the  seizure  of  a  section 
of  a  province  as  compensation  for  the  murder  of 
two  missionaries  ?  We  have  spoken  of  revenge 
and  have  exacted  it.  But  it  is  said  "  China  is  not 
a  civilized  state."  Precisely  so.  Another  blun- 
der of  our  dealings  with  China  has  been  that  we 
have  not  treated  her  as  a  civilized  state  when  we 
should  have  done  so,  and  have  treated  her  as  a 
civilized  state  when  we  should  not  have  done  so. 
We  should  have  recognized  in  our  diplomatic  re- 
lations with  her  that  though  senile  and  dignified, 
she  is  yet  a  minor  and  incompetent.  The  Euro- 
pean nations  have  gone  beyond  the  bounds  of 
proper  international  intercourse  with  China,  when- 
ever it  was  to  their  interest,  and  have  refused  to 
go  beyond  them  when  it  was  to  China's  interest 
that  they  should  do  so. 

There  are  some  who  say,  however,  that  the 
trouble  is  due  to  the  missionaries.  It  is  not  po- 
litical and  it  is  not  commercial.  It  is  religious. 
Well,  it  would  be  folly  to  deny  that  missions 
have  produced  a  profound  impression  upon  China 
and  that  they  have  shaken  the  superstitions  and 
prejudices  of  the  people  in  some  parts  of  China 


Introduction 

to  their  foundation.  It  is  interesting  to  see  this 
recognized  by  that  large  class  of  critics  who  only 
recently  contended  that  the  missionaries  were 
making  no  impression  at  all.  But  this  trouble  is 
not  religious  in  any  direct  sense.  The  mission- 
aries are  the  most  widely  distributed  foreigners  in 
China  and  they  come  in  contact  with  hundreds 
of  thousands  who  never  see  other  foreigners 
and  accordingly  they  feel  more  sharply  and 
quickly  than  any  others  any  outbursts  of  anti- 
foreign  hostility.  Now  some  of  this  hostility  is 
undoubtedly  due  to  the  doctrines  held  by  the 
missionaries.  Some  of  these  violate  some  of  the 
immemorial  customs  and  opinions  of  the  Chinese. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  carry  on  in  any  land 
such  a  tremendous  propaganda  as  missions  have 
carried  on  in  China  without  creating  much  an- 
tagonism. Yet  this  is  easily  exaggerated;  for 
the  missionaries  are  tactful.  They  live  among 
the  people.  As  a  simple  fact  they  have  the 
friendship  of  their  neighbors  and  usually  the  con- 
fidence of  the  people.  They  live  down  prejudice 
and  suspicion.  There  is  objection  to  them  on  the 
ground  of  their  religion,  although  chiefly  on  the 
ground  of  slanderous  misconceptions  of  it,  but  the 
chief  objection  to  them  is  as  representatives  of  the 

Western  political  powers.     For  the  former  they 

10 


Introduction 

must  accept  full  responsibility  and  bear  it  quietly, 
relying  upon  their  message  and  the  Saviour 
whom  they  preach.  But  for  the  odium  in  which 
they  may  be  held  as  mere  avant  couriers  of  the 
political  and  commercial  projects  of  Western 
powers  they  cannot  justly  be  blamed.  If  any  of 
them  have  unjustifiably  or  unwisely  appealed  for 
political  protection  or  used  political  influence,  let 
the  individuals  bear  the  responsibility.  The  en- 
terprise disavows  it.  It  is  a  spiritual  movement. 
It  aims  at  spiritual  results  and  it  proposes  spirit- 
ual means  for  their  accomplishment.  That  is  all 
that  need  be  said  here  regarding  the  political 
rights  of  missionaries. 

Yet  something  more  could  be  said.  Surely  one 
of  their  rights  is  that  their  work  should  not  be 
wrecked  by  undesired  interference.  That  is  a 
point  primarily,  however,  for  the  Roman  Catholic 
missionaries.  And  one  of  their  priests  presents 
it  in  Les  Missions  Catholiques,  June  26,  1891: 
''It  is  of  no  use  to  hide  the  fact:  China  obsti- 
nately rejects  Christianity.  The  haughty  men  of 
letters  are  more  rancorous  than  ever;  every  year 
incendiary  placards  call  the  people  to  the  exter- 
mination of  the  foreign  devils;  and  the  day  is  ap- 
proaching when  this  fine  Church  of  China,  that 

has  cost  so  much  trouble  to  the  Catholic  aposto- 

11 


Introduction 

late,  will  be  utterly  destroyed,  in  the  blood  of  her 
apostles  and  her  children.  Whence  comes  this 
obstinate  determination  to  reject  Christianity? 
It  is  not  religious  fanaticism,  for  no  people  are 
so  far  gone  as  the  Chinese  in  scepticism  and  in- 
difference. One  may  be  a  disciple  of  Confucius 
or  of  Lao-tze,  Mussulman  or  Buddhist,  the 
Chinese  Government  does  not  regard  it.  It  is 
only  against  the  Christian  religion  it  seeks  to  de- 
fend itself.  It  sees  all  Europe  following  on  the  heels 
of  the  apostles  of  Christ,  Europe  with  her  ideas, 
her  civilization,  and  with  that  it  will  have  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  do,  being  rightly  or  wrongly, 
satisfied  with  the  ways  of  its  fathers.  The  question 
therefore  has  much  more  of  a  political  than  a  re- 
ligioute  character,  or  rather  it  is  almost  entirely  po- 
litical. .  .  .  The  efforts  of  the  missionaries 
should  therefore  be  directed  toward  separating 
their  cause  entirely  from  all  political  interests. 
From  this  point  of  view  I  cannot  for  my  own  part 
but  deplore  the  intervention  of  European  govern- 
ments. Nothing  could  in  itself  indeed  be  more 
legitimate,  but  at  the  same  time  nothing  could  be 
more  dangerous  or  more  likely  to  arouse  the 
national  pride  and  the  hatred  of  the  intellectual 
and  learned  classes.     .    .    .     Rightly  or  wrongly, 

China  will  not  have  European  civilization  which 

12 


Introduction 

in  combination  with  Christianity,  is  to  them 
simply  the  invasion  of  Europe.  Let  us  then  dis- 
tinctly separate  the  religious  from  the  political 
question." 

It  is  a  pity  that  this  priest's  views  do  not  repre- 
sent his  Church.  No  one  may  know  how  far 
the  recent  expansion  of  the  political  rights  of 
Roman  Catholic  missionaries  (an  expansion  ob- 
tained for  them,  at  whose  instance  I  do  not 
know,  by  the  French  minister  but  refused  by  the 
Protestant  missionaries)  practically  allowing  them 
to  assume  judicial  functions  and  to  demand  of 
Chinese  officials  what  previously  they  could  only 
request  if  they  could  secure  at  all,  has  been  re- 
sponsible for  the  recent  outbreak. 

I  think  I  need  only  emphasize  two  things  in 
bringing  this  introduction  to  a  close.  First,  mis- 
sions are  not  responsible  for  these  present  diffi- 
culties. They  produced  the  Reform  Movement. 
The  Reformers  acknowledged  that.  The  Em- 
peror himself,  it  was  said,  was  on  the  verge  of 
issuing  an  edict  in  favor  of  Christianity.  If  the 
Western  Powers  allowed  that  to  collapse  and  the 
reactionary  forces  to  resume  control,  missions 
cannot  be  reprimanded  because  reaction  seized 
its  opportunity.  Second,  missions,  at  least  re- 
sponsible  Protestant   missions,    have    not    been 


Introduction 

seeking  for  political  intervention,  for  enlarge- 
ment of  rights  or  for  the  forcible  support  of  their 
work  by  the  Western  powers.  As  for  the 
agencies  which  have  expressed  such  desires1  and 
have  been  gratified,  let  the  history  of  three  gener- 
ations of  our  intercourse  with  China  speak, — the 
Opium  and  the  Arrow  Wars,  and  the  appropria- 
tion of  Manchuria  and  Shantung. 

R.  E.  S. 

1 "  The  key  of  the  position,  which  is  a  politico-commercial 
one,  is  that  government  should  be  strong,  resolute,  and  inspire 
confidence.  This  is  absolutely  essential.  If  that  be  wanting 
as  it  has  been  hitherto,  then  it  is  needless  to  discuss  further 
steps.  But,  provided  such  confidence  is  established,  then  the 
British  merchant  must  be  encouraged  and  supported  through 
thick  and  thin.  British  enterprise  must  be  pushed  inland  into 
every  crevice,  and  every  opportunity  must  be  utilized  in  com- 
mercial and  industrial  matters." — Colquhoun's  China  in 
Transformation,  p.  164. 


11 


LECTURE  III 

CHINA 

"There  are  men  of  that  tyrannical  school  who 
say  that  China  is  not  fit  to  sit  at  the  council 
board  of  the  Nations,  who  call  them  barbarians, 
who  attack  them  on  all  occasions  with  a  bitter 
and  unrelenting  spirit,"  said  Anson  Burlingamein 
New  York,  on  June  23,  1868,  when  he  was  rep- 
resenting the  Chinese  Government  as  head  of  the 
Embassy  which  introduced  China  to  the  Western 
world  when  at  last  the  long  closed  doors  were 
forced  open.  And  "these  things,"  continued 
Burlingame,  "I  utterly  deny.  I  say  on  the  con- 
trary, that  that  is  a  great  and  noble  people.  It 
has  all  the  elements  of  a  splendid  nationality.  It 
has  the  most  numerous  people  on  the  face  of  the 
globe;  it  is  the  most  homogeneous  people  in  the 
world;  its  language  is  spoken  by  more  human 
beings  than  any  other  in  the  world,  and  it  is 
written  in  the  rock;  it  is  a  country  where  there  is 
a  greater  unification  of  thought  than  in  any  other 
country  in  the  world;  it  is  a  country  where  the 
maxims  of  the  great  sages,  coming  down  memo- 

15 


Missions  and  Politics 

rized,  have  permeated  the  whole  people  until  their 
knowledge  is  rather  an  instinct  than  an  acquire- 
ment. It  is  a  people  loyal  while  living,  and 
whose  last  prayer  when  dying  is  to  sleep  in  the 
sacred  soil  of  their  fathers.  It  is  a  land  of  scholars 
and  of  schools — a  land  of  books,  from  the  small- 
est pamphlet  up  to  voluminous  encyclopedias. 
It  is  a  land,  sir,  as  you  have  said,  where  the 
privileges  are  common ;  it  is  a  land  without  caste 
for  they  destroyed  their  feudal  system  two  thou- 
sand one  hundred  years  ago,  and  they  built  up 
their  great  structure  of  civilization  on  the  great 
idea  that  the  people  are  the  source  of  power. 
That  idea  was  uttered  by  Mencius  two  thousand 
years  ago,  and  it  was  old  when  he  uttered  it. 
The  power  flows  forth  from  that  people  into 
practical  government  through  the  cooperative 
system,  and  they  make  scholarship  a  test  of 
merit.  I  say  it  is  a  great,  a  polite,  a  patient,  a 
sober  and  an  industrious  people;  and  it  is  such  a 
people  as  this,  that  the  bitter  boor  would  exclude 
from  the  council  hall  of  the  Nations.  It  is  such  a 
Nation  as  this  that  the  tyrannical  element  would 
put  under  the  ban.  They  say  that  all  these  people 
(a  third  f !]  of  the  human  race)  must  become  the 
weak  wards  of  the  West;  wards  of  Nations  not 
so  populous  as  many  of  their  provinces;  wards 

16 


China 

of  people  who  are  younger  than  their  newest  vil- 
lage in  Manchuria.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the 
Chinese  are  perfect;  far  from  it.  They  have  their 
faults,  their  pride  and  their  prejudices  like  other 
people.  These  are  profound  and  they  must  be 
overcome.  They  have  their  conceits  like  other 
people,  and  they  must  be  done  away;  but  they 
are  not  to  be  removed  by  talking  to  them  with 
cannon,  by  telling  them  that  they  are  feeble  and 
weak,  and  that  they  are  barbarians/' x 

With  these  fair  words  from  our  countryman  of 
florid  speech,  the  most  impressive  and  curious 
nation  on  the  earth  was  introduced  to  national  in- 
tercourse with  other  peoples.  She  had  been 
talked  to  with  cannon.  Otherwise  she  would 
have  continued  to  refuse  introduction.  But  the 
persuasive  iron  speech  of  the  Opium  and  Arrow 
Wars  was  seductive  and  the  mighty  people  came 
out  of  their  seclusion. 

I  have  called  China  impressive,  curious  and 
mighty.  These  three  adjectives  belong  to  China 
and  they  belong  in  the  same  degree  to  no  other 
people. 

The  Chinese  people  are  a  mighty  people.  The 
idea  that  they  were  mighty  in  war  was  finally 
abandoned  three  years  ago,  but  until  the  army 

*  Nevius's  China  and  the  Chinese,  p.  453. 
17 


Missions  and  Politics 

and  navy  of  Japan  showed  how  hollow  and  vain 
were  all  the  Chinese  military  and  naval  preten- 
sions, China  was  reckoned  a  sleeping  giant  who 
had  been  not  inactively  preparing  even  in  sleep 
for  future  struggle.  Had  not  Chinese  armies 
conquered  the  whole  heart  of  Asia  ?  Had  they 
not  driven  Russia  out  of  the  region  South  of  the 
Amoor?  Had  they  not  held  the  dependencies 
against  all  foes  ?  Had  they  not  made  the  French 
war  in  Tonquin  a  scandal  and  almost  a  shame  to 
France?  No  testing  had  ever  come.  What 
China  was  or  could  do  was  enfolded  in  mystery. 
It  is  not  strange  that  Great  Britain  looked  upon 
her  as  her  best  ally  against  Russian  aggression, 
and  that  all  the  politics  of  the  East  turned  upon 
the  conviction  of  China's  formidable  character  as 
a  warlike  nation.  All  this  is  past  now,  and  the 
Western  people  smile  at  their  folly  in  having  been 
so  deceived,  and  sneer  at  the  pathetic  weakness 
of  the  Celestial  Giant.  But  this  is  after  the  nar- 
row judgment  of  men  whose  gods  are  made  of 
saber  slashes  and  running  blood.  China's  unfit- 
ness for  the  modern  science  of  butchery  which 
we  call  war,  and  her  weakness  in  such  work, 
while  manifesting  the  radical  defects  of  incapacity 
for  organization  and  exact  obedience,  but  bring 
into  clearer  relief  her  mighty  adaptation  to  the 


China 

arts  of  peace,  and  her  genuine  power  in  those 
spheres  which  I  confess  seem  to  me  better  spheres 
for  the  exercise  of  power  than  the  fields  of  organ- 
ized murder  or  national  land  robbery  or  the  lust 
of  pride. 

In  the  more  worthy  regards  China  is  a  mighty 
nation.  No  people  are  more  frugal,  more  con- 
tented, more  orderly,  more  patient,  more  industri- 
ous, more  filial  and  respectful  among  themselves. 
"They  have  been  for  ages  the  great  centre  of  light 
and  civilization  in  Central  and  Eastern  Asia.  They 
have  given  literature  and  religion  to  the  millions 
of  Korea  and  Japan."  Even  a  generation  of 
Western  civilization  has  not  shaken  Chinese  in- 
fluence off  the  thought  and  politics  and  ethics 
of  Japan.  Printing  originated  with  the  Chinese, 
and  was  used  by  them  hundreds  of  years  before 
it  was  known  in  the  West.  The  magnetic  needle, 
gunpowder,  silk  fabrics,  chinaware  and  porcelain 
were  old  tales  with  the  Chinese  before  our  civi- 
lization began.  Our  latest  ideas  were  wrought 
out  by  the  Chinese  ages  ago, — Civil  Service  exami- 
nations and  assignment  of  office  for  merit  and 
tested  capacity,  trades  unions  and  organizations, 
the  sense  of  local  responsibility  in  municipal  ad- 
ministration. Already  numbering  one-fourth  the 
population  of  the  earth,  China  ought  to  be  able, 

19 


Missions  and  Politics 

Dr.  Faber  says,1  "comfortably  to  support  at  least 
five  times  the  number  of  its  present  inhabitants," 
taking  Germany  as  a  basis  of  judgment,  for  the 
average  population  of  Germany  is  three  times 
denser  than  the  average  population  of  China,  and 
China's  physical  and  climatic  conditions  are  more 
favorable  than  those  of  Germany,  while  the 
Chinese  are  more  frugal  than  the  Germans.  In 
business,  manufactures  or  trade  no  other  people 
can  compete  with  the  Chinese  on  equal  terms. 
Wherever  equal  terms  prevail,  they  are  driving 
the  foreign  merchants  out  of  their  markets  and 
ports,  and  make  other  labor  impossible.  And 
when,  as  is  sure  to  happen,  their  own  or  foreign 
capitalists  drawing  raw  materials  from  China, 
manufacture  their  cottons,  iron,  silk,  woolens  and 
merchandise  in  Chinese  mills  with  Chinese  labor, 
those  who  now  regard  these  Chinese  as  weak  be- 
cause they  cannot  fight  with  guns  and  ships  will 
recognize  that  there  are  other  standards  than  these 
by  which  the  power  of  a  people  is  to  be  gauged. 
Perhaps  one  reason  why  the  Chinese  have  been 
so  underjudged  and  certainly  one  reason  for  the 
attitude  of  contempt  and  ridicule  civilized  nations 
have  ever  taken  toward  them  is  found  in  their 
curious  peculiarities ;  for  they  are,  as  has  been  said, 

1  Faber 's  China  in  the  Light  of  History,  p.  2. 
20 


China 

the  most  curious  of  peoples.  But  another  reason 
is  found  in  our  misunderstanding  of  them.  As 
Dr.  Martin  once  said,  "They  are  denounced  as 
stolid,  because  we  are  not  in  possession  of  a  me- 
dium sufficiently  transparent  to  convey  our  ideas 
to  them  or  to  transmit  theirs  to  us ;  and  stigma- 
tized as  barbarians,  because  we  want  the  breadth 
to  comprehend  a  civilization  different  from  our 
own.  They  are  represented  as  servile  imitators, 
though  they  have  borrowed  less  than  any  other 
people;  as  destitute  of  the  inventive  faculty, 
though  the  world  is  indebted  to  them  for  a  long 
catalogue  of  the  most  useful  discoveries;  and  as 
clinging  with  unquestioning  tenacity  to  a  heritage 
of  traditions,  though  they  have  passed  through 
many  and  profound  changes  in  the  course  of 
their  history."1  And  we  have  misunderstood  the 
Chinese  in  this  way  not  because  of  any  want  of 
will  to  understand  them,  but  because  from  our 
point  of  view  the  Chinese  character  and  mind  are 
so  perplexing,  almost  inexplicable.  Some  have 
even  denied  in  their  confusion  that  there  is  a  com- 
mon character  or  mind.  Mr.  Henry  Norman  in 
Peoples  and  Politics  of  the  Far  East,  has  done  so, 
contending  that  there  is  no  real  unity  in  China; 
but  those  who  know  China  better,  hold  a  differ- 

1  Martin's  The  Chinese,  p.  228. 
21 


Missions  and  Politics 

ent  view.  "  China  is  not,"  one  of  them  declares, 
"an  immense  congeries  of  polyps  each  encased 
in  his  narrow  cell,  a  workshop  and  a  tomb,  and 
all  toiling  on  without  the  stimulus  of  common 
sympathy  or  mental  reaction.  China  is  not 
.  .  .  like  British  India,  an  assemblage  of  tribes 
with  little  or  no  community  of  feeling.  It  is  a 
unit,  and  through  all  its  members  there  sweeps 
the  mighty  tide  of  a  common  life."1 

And  yet  no  one  has  ever  described  this  life. 
Those  who  have  come  nearest  to  doing  so  have 
confessed  their  failure.  They  have  hit  off  char- 
acteristics but  not  the  character.  Mr.  Smith 
frankly  calls  his  book  which  is  the  best  ac- 
count of  Chinese  character  we  have  Chinese 
Characteristics,  and  one  of  the  fairest  as  well 
as  shrewdest  writers  on  China,  Mr.  George 
Wingrove  Cooke,  the  special  correspondent  of 
the  London  Times,  with  Lord  Elgin's  Mission, 
doubted  whether  the  Chinese  could  be  under- 
stood and  described  by  the  Western  mind.  "I 
have  in  these  letters,"  he  wrote,  "introduced  no 
elaborate  essay  upon  Chinese  character.  It  is  a 
great  omission.  .  .  .  The  truth  is  that,  I  have 
written  several  very  fine  characters  for  the  whole 
Chinese  race,  but  having  the  misfortune  to  have 

'Martin's  The  Chinese,  p.  229. 
22 


China 

the  people  under  my  eye  at  the  same  time  with 
my  essay,  they  were  always  saying  something  or 
doing  something  which  rubbed  so  rudely  against 
my  hypothesis,  that  in  the  interest  of  truth  I 
burned  several  successive  letters.  I  may  add 
that  I  have  often  talked  over  this  matter  with 
the  most  eminent  and  candid  sinologues,  and 
have  always  found  them  ready  to  agree  with  me 
as  to  the  impossibility  of  a  Western  mind  form- 
ing a  conception  of  Chinese  character  as  a  whole. 
These  difficulties,  however,  occur  only  to  those 
who  know  the  Chinese  practically;  a  smart 
writer  entirely  ignorant  of  his  subject  might 
readily  strike  off  a  brilliant  and  antithetical  an- 
alysis, which  should  leave  nothing  to  be  desired 
but  truth."1 

Who  of  us,  for  example,  can  honestly  appre- 
ciate or  understand  the  point  of  view  of  a  people 
among  whom  human  life  is  regarded  as  these 
illustrations  show  ?  A  man  throws  himself  into 
a  canal  and  is  dragged  out.  But  not  to  be  frus- 
trated in  this  way,  simply  sits  down  on  the  bank 
and  starves  himself  to  death  to  be  revenged 
against  somebody  who  has  cheated  him  and 
whose  good  name  will  be  tarnished  in  this  way. 
One  day,  as  a  Chinese  paper  relates,  a  sow  be- 

1  Cooke's  China,  p.  7. 


Missions  and  Politics 

longing  to  a  Mrs.  Feng,  happening  to  knock 
down  and  slightly  injure  the  front  door  of  a 
Mrs.  Wang,  the  latter  at  once  proceeded  to 
claim  damages,  which  were  refused.  Where- 
upon a  fierce  altercation  ensued,  which  termi- 
nated in  Mrs.  Wang's  threatening  to  take  her 
own  life.  Mrs.  Feng,  upon  hearing  of  this  dire- 
ful threat,  resolved  at  once  to  steal  a  march  upon 
her  enemy  by  taking  her  own  life,  and  so  bring- 
ing trouble  and  discredit  upon  Mrs.  Wang.  She 
accordingly  threw  herself  into  the  canal.  And 
these  are  not  uncommon  or  forced  illustrations. 
They  are  part  of  the  common  routine  of  life.1 

And  the  occasional  cruelty  of  the  Chinese  is 
beyond  belief.  "I  know  of  a  case  in  a  wealthy 
Mandarin's  family,"  writes  one  old  missionary, 
"  where  the  only  grown  daughter  showing  signs 
of  leprosy,  a  slave  girl  was  bought  and  butch- 
ered, and  the  patient  fed  with  the  flesh  of  the 
poor  victim."2  How  is  this  to  be  understood 
among  a  people  of  high  moral  standards,  and 
ancient  and  boasted  civilization  ? 

And  their  government  contains  equally  curious 
features;  men  appointed  to  expensive  office  with- 
out salary  and  then  punished  for  squeezing;  lofty 

1  Norman's  Peoples  and  Politics  of  the  Far  East,  p.  278. 

3  Faber's  Famous  Women  of  China,  p.  4. 

24 


China 

political  ethics  combined  with  the  most  corrupt 
official  class  in  the  world ;  vast  numbers  of  eu- 
nuchs, 3,000  in  the  palace  of  the  Emperor  alone, 
under  a  system  which  proclaims  the  sonless  man 
to  be  an  outcast  soul,  doomed  eternally;  a  pro- 
fessed atheism,  or  at  best  agnosticism  combined 
with  the  most  silly  superstitions.  This,  for  ex- 
ample, is  one  of  the  decrees  for  the  year  1896, 
taken  from  the  Imperial  Gazette,  "A  shroud  in- 
scribed with  the  T'olo  prayers,  the  work  of  the 
Tibetan  Buddhist  Pontiff,  is  granted  to  the  de- 
ceased noble  Tsai  Tsin."  This  is  another  of  less 
recent  date:  " Tso  Tsung  fang  refers  for  favor- 
able consideration  an  application  made  to  him 
that  a  certain  girl  who  died  in  1469  may  be  can- 
onized. Wherever  rain  has  failed,  prayers  of- 
fered up  at  the  shrine  of  the  girl  angel  at  Pa-mi- 
shan  have  usually  been  successful.  An  inquiry 
into  the  earthly  history  of  the  girl  angel  shows 
that  she  was  born  in  the  capital  of  Kansuh,  and 
during  her  childhood  lived  an  exemplary  life. 
She  was  guiltless  of  a  smile  or  any  sort  of  levity; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  spent  the  livelong  day  in 
doing  her  duty.  Arrived  at  maidenhood,  her 
mother  wished  to  betroth  her,  but  the  girl  refused 
to  marry,  and  betook  herself  to  the  Pa-mi  hills, 
where  she  gave  herself  up  to  religious  exercise 


Missions  and  Politics 

and  nourished  herself  on  spiritual  food,  until  she 
was  transformed  into  an  angel.  After  she  had 
left  this  world,  the  people  of  the  locality  found 
that  an  appeal  to  her  was  invariably  answered, 
and  a  temple  was  built  in  her  honor.  During  the 
recent  dry  season,  prayers  for  rain  were  always 
granted,  thus  showing  that  though  hundreds  of 
years  have  gone  by,  the  maiden  still  watches  over 
the  locality.  The  memorialist  is  of  opinion  that 
she  may  well  be  included  in  the  calendar,  and 
proposes  that  for  the  future,  sacrifices  may  be 
offered  to  her  every  spring  and  autumn.  Re- 
script :  Let  the  Board  of  Ceremonies  report  upon 
the  matter."1  Other  edicts  provide  for  the  offer 
of  incense  to  certain  gods,  the  selection  of  lucky 
days  for  various  observances,  the  deification  of  a 
certain  maiden,  etc. 

Yet  these  curious  features  must  not  be  so  ex- 
aggerated as  to  make  China  appear  ludicrous. 
The  West  has  erred  in  this.  China's  great  pre- 
tensions, her  theatricalism,  her  hypocrisy  were 
understood  by  all,  and  her  absurdities  have  been 
allowed  to  fill  such  a  place  that  China  has  been 
rather  the  laughing  stock  of  the  nations.  But  the 
Chinese  are  a  profoundly  impressive  people. 
Nowhere  else  in  the  world  has  the  idea  of  social 

1  Faber's  Famous  Women  of  China,  p.  6. 
26 


China 

or  family  responsibility  been  so  developed.  For 
example,  an  idiot  son  murders  his  father,  and  an 
imperial  edict  records  that  the  son  for  such  a 
dreadful  crime  has  been  punished  by  slow  execu- 
tion, and  that  the  whole  village  has  been  destroyed 
as  sharing  in  the  offence;  for  had  its  influence 
been  proper  and  properly  exerted,  no  boy  reared 
in  the  village  would  have  committed  such  a  crime. 
Nowhere  else  in  the  world  has  the  idea  of  filial 
piety  been  so  emphasized  and  honored,  and  it  is 
a  wonderful  sight  to  see  a  whole  vast  Nation  testi- 
fying to  its  real  belief  in  immortality  by  the  annual 
sacrifices  to  the  spirits  of  the  departed.  It  is  true 
that  the  position  of  woman  is  subordinate  and 
menial,  and  that  she  is  valued  most  as  the  possi- 
ble mother  of  sons.     As  the  Book  of  Odes  says: 

"The  bears  and  grisly  bears 
Are  the  auspicious  intimations  of  sons ; 
The  cobras  and  other  snakes 
Are  the  auspicious  intimations  of  daughters  ; 
Sons  shall  be  born  to  them  : 
They  will  be  put  to  sleep  on  couches  ; 
They  will  be  clothed  in  robes  ; 
They  will  have  sceptres  to  play  with  ; 
Their  cry  will  be  loud. 

They  will  be  hereafter  resplendent  with  knee-covers, 
The  future  kings,  the  princes  of  the  land. 
Daughters  shall  be  born  to  them  ; 
They  will  be  put  to  sleep  on  the  ground  ; 
They  will  be  clothed  with  wrappers  ; 
They  will  have  tiles  to  play  with. 
It  will  be  theirs  neither  to  do  wrong  nor  to  do  good. 
Only  about  the  spirits  and  the  food  will  they  have  to  think, 
And  to  cause  no  sorrow  to  their  parents."  l 

1  Faber's  The  Status  of  Women  in  China,  p.  5. 
27 


Missions  and  Politics 

And  yet  marriage  has  been  ever  regarded  by  the 
Chinese  as  a  sacred  institution,  and  has  been  care- 
fully defended;  and  it  maybe  doubted  whether 
in  any  State,  save  the  Jewish,  as  much  has  been 
made  of  the  family,  or  it  has  been  so  truly  the 
foundation  of  the  State,  which  the  Chinese  call  the 
Family  of  the  Nation,  while  "prefects  and  magis- 
trates are  popularly  styled  parent  officials." '  And 
as  to  this  State  which  has  existed  for  forty  cen- 
turies, and  would  exist  for  forty  more  if  left  to 
its  desired  seclusion,  where  in  all  history  can  any- 
thing more  impressive  be  found  than  it,  or  than 
those  great  statements  of  its  political  science 
which  Confucius  framed:  "If  government  is 
exercised  by  means  of  virtue,  it  is  made  as  stead- 
fast as  the  North  pole.  Mere  external  govern- 
ment (i.  e.  orders)  is  opposed  to  virtue.  Filial 
piety  and  brotherly  love  are  necessary;  besides 
these  two,  there  are  no  special  rules.  Govern- 
ment consists  altogether  in  regulating,  i.  e.  set- 
ting to  right.  This  is  achieved  when  the  prince 
is  prince,  and  the  minister  is  minister;  when  the 
father  is  father,  and  the  son  is  son.  But  the  prince 
must  desire  what  is  good  and  the  people  will  be 
good;  therefore  capital  punishment  is  not  neces- 
sary.    Princes  ought  to  go  before  the  people. 

1  Von  MSllendorff's  Family  Law  of  the  Chinese^  p.  4. 

23 


China 

Then  the  people  follow.  The  necessary  thing  is 
to  have  sufficiency  of  food  for  the  people,  weap- 
ons and  confidence.  If  necessary,  weapons  can 
be  dispensed  with,  then  food,  but  without  mu- 
tual confidence,  especially  of  the  people  toward 
the  superiors,  there  is  no  standing  for  the  State. 
When  those  who  are  near  are  made  glad  then 
those  who  are  far,  come  themselves.  It  should 
be  the  care  of  the  Government  to  call  everything 
by  its  right  name,  so  that  no  wrong  be  secreted 
behind  a  surreptitious  and  hypocritical  name. 
Good  government  depends  chiefly  upon  the  ex- 
cellence of  the  prince,  besides  also  upon  qualified 
officials,  in  the  election  of  whom  the  sovereign 
must  take  an  interest.  If  the  individual  states, 
as  also  the  imperial  domain  are  swayed  in  this 
way,  the  peaceful  order  of  the  whole  Empire  fol- 
lows as  a  matter  of  course,  especially  if  a  virtu- 
ous emperor  be  at  the  head  of  it." 1 

Surely  it  is  fitting  to  apply  to  this  great  people 
the  terms  mighty,  curious,  impressive.  How  in 
the  operations  of  Providence  has  such  a  people 
been  produced,  and  for  what  unseen,  divine  pur- 
pose ?  There  are  two  questions  here — the  ques- 
tion of  origin  and  the  question  of  destiny. 

First,  then,  the  Chinese  race  is  what  it  is  to-day 

1  Faber's  Systematical  Digest  of  the  Doctrines  of  Confucius,  pp.  94-98. 

29 


Missions  and  Politics 

because  of  its  isolation  and  its  education.  By  her 
geographical  position  China  has  been  separated 
from  the  whole  world,  as  the  Romans  said  of 
Britain.  The  mountains  of  Tibet  rose  as  an  in- 
surmountable wall  between  China  and  the  great 
wave  of  Western  conquest  which  swept  away 
the  empires  of  Babylon  and  Persia,  and  later 
under  the  Mohammedans  established  itself  for 
seven  centuries  in  India.  On  the  North  and  West 
stretched  vast  wastes  of  desert,  untrodden  and 
impassable,  and  the  unploughed  sea  separated 
the  Empire  from  all  contact  on  the  East.  The 
Chinese  language  seemed  yet  further  to  isolate 
the  Nation  and  to  separate  the  people  intellectu- 
ally from  their  fellow  men;  while  it  also  bound 
those  who  used  it  closer  together.  A  phonetic 
rather  than  a  symbolic  language  would  have  led 
as  in  Europe,  to  the  development  of  different 
languages  in  different  provinces  or  states,  and  so 
would  have  prevented  the  growth  of  a  great 
Chinese  race.  As  it  is,  geographical  isolation 
shut  China  off  from  contact  with  languages  like 
Sanscrit  and  Assyrian  which  would  have  led  to 
modifications,  and  ignorant  of  any  approxima- 
tion to  phonetic  principles,  China  grew  with 
one  written  and  literary  language,  and  in  the 
main,    a   common  spoken  tongue  which  were 

30 


China 

alike    added  bonds  within   and  added  barriers 
against  those  without.1 

But  isolation  alone  could  not  have  produced 
the  Chinese  people.  It  merely  provided  those 
potential  conditions  in  which  Chinese  education 
could  have  free  and  uninterrupted  play  upon  the 
nation.  As  Wells  Williams  points  out,  "Their 
literary  tendencies  could  never  have  attained  the 
strength  of  an  institution  if  they  had  been  sur- 
rounded by  more  intelligent  nations;  nor  would 
they  have  filled  the  land  to  such  a  degree  if  they 
had  been  forced  to  constantly  defend  themselves 
or  had  imbibed  the  lust  of  conquest.  Either  of 
these  conditions  would  probably  have  brought 
their  own  national  life  to  a  premature  close." 
In  these  literary  tendencies  the  moral  and  social 
teachings  of  their  great  sages  and  rulers,  their 
systems  of  education,  the  real  kinetic  energy 
which  has  fashioned  and  preserved  the  Chinese 
people  is  to  be  found.  In  the  Classics  compiled 
by  Confucius  all  wisdom  is  contained,  according 
to  Chinese  opinion,  and  the  mastery  of  these 
Classics,  memorizing  them  and  learning  to  use 
their  materials  according  to  artificial  and  fine 
drawn  rules,  is  preparation  for  life,  training  for 
public  office  and  title  to  honor  and  glory.     All 

1  Wells  Williams'  Middle  Kingdom,  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  188-190. 
31 


Missions  and  Politics 

preferment  is  based  on  success  in  the  Govern- 
ment examinations  in  the  knowledge  and  use  of 
the  Classics.  Some  Chinese  historians  maintain 
that  appointment  to  office  was  first  conditioned 
on  competitive  examinations  by  the  Emperor 
Shun  in  the  year  2200  b.  c.  Though  this  may 
be  doubted,  it  is  certain  that  now  the  system 
penetrates  the  whole  Empire,  and  thousands  and 
hundreds  of  thousands,  even  millions  compete 
for  the  degrees,  the  lowest,  or  "  Budding  Gen- 
ius" corresponding  rudely  to  our  B.  A.,  the  sec- 
ond, "Promoted  Scholar"  a  sort  of  M.  A.,  the 
third,  "Fit  for  Office,"  a  sort  of  D.  C.  L,,  or  LL. 
D.  To  which  may  be  added  a  fourth,  or  "Han- 
lin  "  degree,  by  which  the  successful  scholar  be- 
comes a  member  of  the  Hanlin  Academy  or 
"  Forest  of  Pencils."  About  one  per  cent,  of  the 
rough  scholars  get  the  degree  of  "Budding  Gen- 
ius," and  from  the  fact  that  25,000  with  this  de- 
gree will  compete  at  one  provincial  capital  for 
the  second  degree,  one  gains  some  idea  of  the 
number  of  candidates.  About  one  per  cent, 
of  the  "Budding  Geniuses"  become  "Fit  for 
Office."1 

The  subjects  of  these  examinations  for  cen- 
turies  have  of  course  furnished  the  staple  of 

1  Martin's  The  Chinese,  pp.  39-84. 
32 


China 

thought  of  the  Chinese  people,  and  the  Classics 
have  thus  been  woven  into  the  very  grain  and 
texture  of  the  Chinese  race.  They  have  memo- 
rized them  and  the  commentaries  upon  them  and 
have  looked  upon  their  absorption  and  the  model- 
ling of  life  upon  them,  as  the  consummation  of 
all  duties.  How  thoroughly  they  have  been  ex- 
pected to  do  this  such  questions  as  these  from 
the  examination  papers  will  indicate:  "How  do 
the  rival  schools  of  Wang  and  Ching  differ  in  re- 
spect to  the  exposition  of  the  meaning  and  the 
criticism  of  the  Book  of  Changes  ?"  "The  art  of 
war  arose  under  Hwang  te,  forty-four  hundred 
years  ago.  Different  dynasties  have  since  that 
time  adopted  different  regulations  in  regard  to 
the  use  of  militia  or  standing  armies,  the  mode 
of  raising  supplies  for  the  army,  etc.  Can  you 
state  these  briefly  ?  "  Or,  note  such  a  subject  for 
an  essay  as  this  passage  from  the  Analects  of 
Confucius.  "  Confucius  said,  '  How  majestic  was 
the  manner  in  which  Shun  and  Yu  held  pos- 
session of  the  Empire,  as  if  it  were  nothing  to 
them.'  Confucius  said,  'Great indeed  was  Yaou 
as  a  sovereign!  How  majestic  was  he!  It  is 
only  Heaven  that  is  grand  and  only  Yaou  corre- 
sponded to  it!  How  vast  was  his  virtue!  The 
people  could  find  no  name  for  it.'"    A  few  years 

33 


Missions  and  Politics 

ago  the  University  of  London  admitted  to  its  in- 
itial examinations  annually  about  1,400  candi- 
dates, and  passed  one-half.  The  Government 
examinations  of  China  at  the  same  time  admit- 
ted about  2,000,000  annually,  and  passed  one  per 
cent.1 

This  great  device  has  worked  for  centuries  now. 
As  Dr.  Martin  has  pointed  out,  "It  has  served 
the  State  as  a  safety  valve,  providing  a  career  for 
those  ambitious  spirits  which  might  otherwise 
foment  disturbances  or  excite  revolutions.  It 
operates  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  power  of  an  ab- 
solute monarch.  With  it  a  man  of  talent  may 
raise  himself  from  the  humblest  ranks  to  the 
dignity  of  viceroy  or  premier.  It  gives  the  Gov- 
ernment a  hold  on  the  educated  gentry,  and  binds 
them  to  the  support  of  existing  institutions." 
And  its  influence  on  the  character  and  opinion  of 
the  people  has  been  simply  enormous.  That 
"the  Chinese  may  be  regarded  as  the  only  pagan 
nation  which  has  maintained  democratic  habits 
under  a  purely  despotic  theory  of  Government; 
that  this  Government  has  respected  the  rights  of 
its  subjects  by  placing  them  under  the  protection 
of  law,  with  its  sanctions  and  tribunals  (and 
keeping  them  there)  and  making  the  sovereign 

1  Idem,  pp.  51,  52. 
34 


China 

amenable  in  the  popular  mind  for  the  continuance 
of  his  sway  to  the  approval  of  a  higher  Power 
able  to  punish  him;  that  it  has  prevented  the 
domination  of  all  feudal,  hereditary  and  priestly 
classes  and  interests  by  making  the  tenure  of  of- 
ficers of  Government  below  the  throne  chiefly  de- 
pend on  their  literary  attainments;" — all  this  is 
due  to  the  influence  of  their  educational  system 
and  the  body  of  teaching  it  has  ground  into  the 
Nation.1 

On  the  other  hand,  the  weaknesses  and  inef- 
ficiencies of  China  to-day  are  in  great  measure 
directly  traceable  to  the  same  influence  and  teach- 
ing. The  literati,  "the  most  influential  portion 
of  the  population,"  are  the  most  conservative, 
bigoted  and  narrow-minded.  "The  Chinese 
have  drawn  their  self-conceit  and  contempt  for 
all  foreigners  as  barbarians  from  the  ancient 
works."  "  The  scholar  of  the  first  degree,"  says 
their  proverb,  "without  going  abroad  is  able  to 
know  what  transpires  under  the  whole  heaven." 
Confucius  lived  six  centuries  before  Christ.  To 
make  what  he  knew  and  the  wisdom  of  those 
who  v/ent  before  him  the  total  of  all  available 
wisdom  and  to  school  men  into  this  conviction 
until  it  is  ineradicable  has  been  one  result  of  the 

'Wells  Williams'  Middle  Kingdom,  Vol.  ii.,  p.  191. 
35 


Missions  and  Politics 

Chinese  system  of  education.  It  has  limited 
knowledge  and  life  to  the  level  of  the  far  past, 
and  has  made  fidelity  to  this  old  antediluvianism 
the  test  of  all  things.  Chinese  education  has 
isolated  China  in  time  as  it  was  of  old  isolated  by 
language  and  in  space.  Confucianism  has  shown 
itself  as  stereotyped  and  sterile  as  Islam. 

This  is  not  an  uncharitable  judgment.  History 
and  the  present  evidence  of  life  have  passed  it. 
Confucianism  has  limited  the  horizon  of  men  to 
the  wisdom  of  twenty-five  centuries  ago.  "The 
past  is  made  for  slaves,"  said  Enwson,  and 
whatever  truth  is  in  his  saying  appHes  to  the 
Chinese.  Confucianism  recognizes  no  relation  to 
a  living  God.  It  relegates  all  contact  with 
Heaven  even  to  an  annual  act  of  the  Emperor. 
It  ignores  the  plainest  facts  of  moral  character. 
It  has  no  serious  idea  of  sin,  and  indeed  no 
deeper  insight  at  all.  It  cannot  explain  death. 
It  holds  truth  of  light  account.  It  presupposes 
and  tolerates  polygamy  and  sanctions  polytheism. 
It  confounds  ethics  with  external  ceremonies  and 
reduces  social  life  to  tyranny.  It  rises  at  the  high- 
est no  higher  than  the  worship  of  genius,  the 
deification  of  man.1 

Indeed  the  Chinese  themselves  long  ago  passed 

1  Faber's  Systematical  Digest  of  the  Doctrine  of  Confucius,  pp.  124-13:. 

36 


China 

judgment  upon  the  inadequacy  of  Confucianism, 
and  with  that  utter  disregard  of  logical  consis- 
tency which  is  another  of  their  inexplicable  di- 
vergences from  the  ways  of  the  West,  added  to 
their  Confucian  beliefs  the  most  un-Confucian 
ideas  of  Taoism  and  Buddhism.  The  Chinese 
have  never  been  capable,  however,  of  holding 
either  of  these  religions  in  even  an  approximately 
pure  form.  Taoism  was  in  Lao  Tse's  hands  a 
high  transcendental  idealism,  but  his  followers  re- 
cced it  to  alchemy  and  necromancy.  Buddhism 
was  a  sort  of  atheistic  mysticism,  but  in  China  it 
became  a  system  of  magic  or  spiritual  thauma- 
turgy.  Any  line  of  division  between  these  two 
became  obscured,  and  both  were  absorbed  by  the 
Chinese  to  supply  in  a  measure  those  spiritual 
longings  which  Confucianism  had  been  futile  to 
suppress,  and  to  which  it  had  no  ministry.  But 
Taoism  and  Buddhism  while  having  firm  hold 
upon  the  Nation,  and  tingfng  the  life  of  every 
man,  supplying  those  elements  of  superstition 
and  real  religion  which  the  agnosticism  of  Con- 
fucianism ignored,  have  never  been  able  to  shake 
the  older  system,  and  have  not  modified  in  the 
direction  of  enlightenment  and  broader  sympathy 
the  education  of  the  Chinese  race.  Isolated  at 
the  beginning,  twenty-five  centuries  of  narrow- 

37 


Missions  and  Politics 

ing  discipline  have  separated  the  Chinese  by  a 
mighty  chasm  from  other  Nations  and  the  sweep 
of  human  progress,  holding  them 

"Aloof  from  our  mutations  and  unrest 
Alien  to  our  achievements  and  desires." 

It  is  not  at  all  strange  that  people  of  such  a 
character  and  education  should  have  assumed  to- 
ward the  rest  of  the  world  the  attitude  they  have. 
Before  the  Western  Nations  molested  them,  their 
Empire  was  the  mistress  of  all.  The  little  king- 
doms round  about  she  treated  with  patronage  or 
contempt.  When  the  Western  Nations  came,  she 
judged  them  by  her  dependent  tribes,  and  spoke 
to  them  as  she  had  spoken  to  her  tributary  neigh- 
bors. "She  assumed  a  tone  of  superiority,  pro- 
nounced them  barbarians  and  demanded  tribute." 
This  was  due  to  her  ignorance  and  conceit.  Her 
conceit  abides,  and  it  is  to  be  feared,  so  also  does 
her  ignorance.  Thus  the  author  of  China's  In- 
tercourse with  Europe  wherein  the  facts  are 
given  from  the  Chinese  point  of  view,  says,  "As 
for  the  petty  States  of  the  German  Zollverein 
.  .  .  many  of  them  are  unknown  even  by 
name  in  the  historical  and  geographical  works 
accessible  to  us,  and  we  have  no  means  of  estab- 
lishing the  fact  of  their  alleged  existence!"1    A 

1  China's  Intercourse  with  Europe^  p.  114. 
38 


China 

correspondent  of  the  London  Times  recently  told 
of  a  conversation  with  some  Chinese  officials  on 
the  Tibetan  border,  in  which  reference  was 
made  to  the  capture  of  Peking  in  1862  by  the 
French  and  English.  "Yes,"  said  the  officials 
laughing,  "we  know  you  said  you  went  there, 
and  we  read  with  much  amusement  your  gazettes 
giving  your  account  of  it  all.  They  were  very 
cleverly  written  and  we  dare  say  deceived  your 
own  subjects  into  a  belief  that  you  actually  went 
to  Peking.  We  often  do  the  same  thing." 1  And 
even  in  the  famous  memorial  which  was  pre- 
sented in  1895,  signed  by  1,300  scholars  who  had 
taken  the  second  degree  and  represented  fourteen 
out  of  the  Eighteen  Provinces  of  China,  and 
which  urged  a  number  of  reforms,  the  establish- 
ment of  banks  and  post  offices,  railways,  encour- 
agement of  machinery,  mining,  newspapers, 
education,  etc.,  the  following  sentences  occur, 
showing  the  most  naive  ignorance  of  the  world. 
"Let  the  most  advanced  students  of  Confucian- 
ism be  called  up  by  the  Emperor  to  the  capital 
and  given  the  Hanlin  degree  and  funds  to  go 
abroad.  If  they  succeed  in  establishing  schools 
in  foreign  countries  v/here  are  gathered  1,000 
pupils,  let  them  be  ennobled.     Thus  we  shall  take 

J  Norman's  Peoples  and  Politics  of  the  Far  East,  p.  286. 
39 


Missions  and  Politics 

Confucianism  and  with  it  civilize  all  the  barbar- 
ians, and  under  the  cloak  of  preaching  Confu- 
cianism, travel  abroad  and  quickly  learn  the  mo- 
tives of  the  barbarians  and  extend  the  fame  of 
our  country." 

These  words  of  the  1,300  scholars  indicate  an- 
other element  of  China's  training  and  of  the 
present  situation.  Not  only  are  the  Chinese  a 
mighty,  curious  and  impressive  people  whom 
Western  Nations  have  misunderstood  and  de- 
spised, but  the  Chinese  have  also  misunderstood 
as  well  as  despised  the  Western  peoples.  Those 
same  features  of  their  character  and  education 
which  make  them  so  unintelligible  to  us  make  us 
unintelligible  to  them.  The  memorial  of  the 
1,300  scholars  proposes  that  Confucian  mission- 
aries be  sent  both  to  civilize  the  barbarians  of  the 
West,  and  to  learn  just  what  our  motives  are. 
From  the  Chinese  point  of  view,  these  seem  to 
me  to  be  eminently  just  and  reasonable  proposi- 
tions. And  even  from  an  unbiased  and  interme- 
diate point  of  view  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  a  candid  comparison  of  Western  and  Chinese 
civilizations  does  not  leave  everything  to  be  said 
on  one  side.  With  a  pure  Christian  civilization 
Confucian  civilization  could  not  stand  comparison 
lor  a  moment,  but  it  can  have  its  own  word  to 

40 


China 

say  in  any  controversy  with  our  actual  present 
stage  of  civilization  in  the  West.  And  as  to 
Chinese  confusion  as  to  the  real  motives  of  West- 
ern Nations,  who  can  wonder  that  they  are  an 
enigma  to  the  Chinese  ?  Are  they  not  to  us  ? 
Who  can  disentangle  the  sincere  from  the  selfish 
and  false  ?  "  Your  code  of  morals  is  defective  in 
one  point,"  said  Li  Hung  Chang  once,  "it  lays 
too  much  stress  on  charity  and  too  little  on  jus- 
tice." Who  can  reconcile  the  professed  motives 
of  the  Mission  movement  with  the  obvious  pur- 
poses of  European  Governments  ?  We  know 
they  are  irreconcilable  and  do  not  try,  but  they 
are  the  double  face  of  a  single  party  to  the  Chi- 
nese. Besides  he  cannot  understand  the  restless- 
ness of  the  West,  its  unwillingness  to  stay  at 
home,  its  constant  spirit  of  disturbance,  of  change, 
the  lust  of  innovation,  its  domineering  impetu- 
ousness,  its  obtrusiveness,  its  irritating  refusal  to 
let  China  alone.  Nor  could  we  understand  these 
things  if  we  were  in  the  place  of  the  Chinese. 
Indeed  even  in  our  own  place  much  of  our  spirit 
and  of  the  spirit  of  our  Western  peoples  is  unin- 
telligible to  us,  save  as  the  inherited  genius  of  the 
race,  and  much  of  it  as  displayed  in  dealings  with 
Oriental  Nations  from  Turkey  to  China  is  as  a  foul 
stench  in  our  nostrils. 

41 


Missions  and  Politics 

Here  then  have  been  all  the  elements  of  a  most 
interesting  situation  which  has  altered  but  slightly 
since  the  gates  of  China  were  forced  about  fifty 
years  ago.  On  one  side  a  Nation  numbering  one- 
fourth  of  the  human  race,  not  comprehending, 
heartily  despising  the  Western  Nations,  desiring 
to  be  let  alone  and  to  live  on  in  the  ancient  ways 
of  the  sages.  On  the  other,  the  forceful  Nations 
of  the  West  not  comprehending  China,  viewing 
her  ludicrously  and  with  contempt,  but  insisting  on 
intercourse,  on  equal  terms,  and  demanding  that 
China  should  forego  her  desire  for  seclusion  and 
open  to  the  world.  This  struggle  and  the  forces 
which  have  entered  into  it,  have  constituted  the 
last  of  the  influences  which  have  produced  the 
China  of  our  present  history,  until  within  the  last 
few  months  the  European  Nations  have  threat- 
ened the  integrity  of  the  Eighteen  Provinces. 
The  want  of  proportion  in  our  historical  knowl- 
edge is  in  nothing  more  clearly  shown  than  in  our 
ignorance  of  the  steps  in  this  great  struggle,  espe- 
cially of  the  real  character  and  meaning  of  the 
Opium  and  Arrow  Wars.  The  average  student 
knows  only,  as  the  current  oratory  runs:  ''that 
Great  Britain  forced  opium  on  helpless  and  protest- 
ing China  at  the  mouth  of  her  cannon,"  and 
scarcely  stops  to  think  of  the  deeper  significance 

42 


China 

of  those  acts  in  the  great  movement  which  had  to 
do  with  the  welfare  and  destiny  of  one-fourth  of 
the  human  race,  yes  and  the  welfare  and  destiny  of 
perhaps  two-fourths  more.  The  first  war,  1839- 
1842,  opened  the  five  treaty  ports  of  Canton,  Amoy, 
Foochow,  Ningpo  and  Shanghai,  ceded  Hong  Kong 
to  Great  Britain,  authorized  trade  and  recognized 
foreigners.  "  Looked  at  in  any  point  of  view," 
says  the  most  solid  writer  on  China,  "political, 
commercial,  moral  or  intellectual,  it  will  always 
be  considered  as  one  of  the  turning  points  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  involving  the  welfare  of  all 
nations  in  its  wide-reaching  consequences.  .  .  . 
It  was  extraordinary  in  its  origin,  as  growing 
chiefly  out  of  a  commercial  misunderstanding; 
remarkable  in  its  course  as  being  waged  between 
strength  and  weakness,  conscious  superiority  and 
ignorant  pride;  melancholy  in  its  end  as  forcing 
the  weaker  to  pay  for  the  opium  within  its  borders 
against  all  its  laws,  thus  paralyzing  the  little 
moral  power  its  feeble  Government  could  exert  to 
protect  its  subjects ;  and  momentous  in  its  results 
as  introducing,  on  a  basis  of  acknowledged  obli- 
gations, one-half  of  the  world  to  the  other,  with- 
out any  arrogant  demands  from  the  victors,  or 
humiliating  concessions  from  the  vanquished.     It 

was  a  turning-point  in  the  national  life  of  the 

43 


Missions  and  Politics 

Chinese  race."1  The  second  war,  1857-1860, 
grew  out  of  an  occurrence  of  a  most  trivial  char- 
acter, and  was  marked  by  the  pursuit  of  the 
most  petty,  private  and  even  unjustifiable  ends;2 
but  it  resulted  in  the  opening  of  nine  more  treaty 
ports ;  it  conceded  the  right  to  travel  throughout 
the  Eighteen  Provinces,  and  contained  a  special 
clause  giving  protection  to  foreigners  and  natives 
in  the  propagation  and  adoption  of  the  Christian 
religion. 

Now  although  troubles  over  opium  were  the 
occasion  of  the  first  war,  the  real  issues  were 
general  trade  intercourse  and  reciprocal  and  equal 
diplomatic  relations  as  necessary  thereto.  "The 
merchants  of  Great  Britain,"  said  Lord  Napier 
before  the  war,  "wish  to  trade  with  all  China  on 
principles  of  mutual  benefit;  they  will  never  relax 
their  exertions  till  they  gain  a  point  of  equal  impor- 
tance to  both  countries,  and  the  viceroy  will  find 
it  as  easy  to  stop  the  current  of  the  Canton  River 
as  to  carry  into  effect  the  insane  determinations 
of  the  Hong,"  (to  resist  these  trade  advances). 
Opium  was  an  accident  and  not  an  essential  of 
the  wars.  As  a  Chinese  writer  has  said  in  a 
novel  account  of  this  matter,  "It  is  plain  that  it 

1  Wells  Williams'  Middle  Kingdom,  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  463,  464. 

3  Martin's  A  Cycle  of  Cathay,  pp.  143-190. 

44 


China 

was  not  the  destruction  of  the  opium,  but  the 
stoppage  of  trade,  which  caused  these  wars. 
.  .  .  This  was  sufficient  to  disappoint  and 
provoke  men  who  had  come  thousands  of  miles 
for  the  sake  of  gain.  .  .  .  Worms  only  ap- 
pear in  a  rotten  carcase,  and  it  was  only  when 
exaction  followed  exaction  and  justice  was  de- 
nied to  creditors,  that  the  foreigners  turned  upon 
us.  War  would  have  followed  all  the  same  even 
if  the  opium  trade  had  been  stopped;  and  in  fact 
opium  only  came  because  profits  being  impossi- 
ble by  fair,  the  foreigners  were  driven  to  obtain 
them  by  foul  means.  Some  people  argue  that  it 
was  the  granting  of  trade  in  the  first  instance  that 
brought  on  our  troubles.  But  this  is  absurd ;  for 
China  can  do  without  foreigners,  whilst  foreign- 
ers are  dependent  upon  us  for  tea  and  rhubarb, 
and  therefore  are  at  our  mercy.  All  that  is 
wanted  is  fair  trade  to  secure  their  willing  loy- 
alty."1 But  it  was  not  trade  only.  It  was  also 
the  recognition  of  equality  and  respect  that  the 
Western  Nations  demanded.  This  the  Chinese  of- 
ficials had  contemptuously  refused.  "The  great 
ministers  of  the  Chinese  Empire  ...  are  not 
permitted  to  have  intercourse  with  outside  bar- 

1  Parker's  Chinese  Account  of  the  Opium  War,  and  China's  Intercourse 
with  Europe,  p.  55. 

45 


Missions  and  Politics 

barians,"  said  the  Viceroy  of  Canton  to  the  Eng- 
lish Envoy.  In  reporting  the  matter  to  Peking, 
the  Canton  Governor  said,  "On  the  face  of  the 
envelope  (which  the  barbarian  Envoy  presented) 
the  forms  and  style  of  equality  were  used,  and 
there  were  absurdly  written  the  characters  '  Great 
English  Nation.'  Now  it  is  plain  on  the  least  re- 
flection, that  in  keeping  the  central  and  outside 
people  apart,  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  to 
maintain  dignity  and  sovereignty.  Whether  the 
said  barbarian  has  or  has  not  official  rank  there 
are  no  means  of  thoroughly  ascertaining.  But 
though  he  be  really  an  officer  of  the  said  Nation, 
he  yet  cannot  write  letters  on  equality  with  fron- 
tier officers  of  the  Celestial  Empire."  Later  the 
Governor  issued  a  paper  deprecating  the  disturb- 
ance of  trade  and  saying,  "Lord  Napier's  pre- 
vious opposition  necessarily  demands  such  a  mode 
of  procedure,  and  it  would  be  most  right  imme- 
diately to  put  a  stop  to  buying  and  selling.  But 
considering  that  the  said  Nation's  King  has  hitherto 
been  in  the  highest  degree  reverently  obedient, 
he  cannot  in  sending  Lord  Napier  at  this  time 
have  desired  him  thus  obstinately  to  resist.  The 
some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  commercial  duties 
yearly  coming  from  the  said  country  concern  not 
the  Celestial  Empire  the  extent  of  a  hair  or  a 

46 


China 

feather's  down.  .  .  .  But  the  tea,  the  rhu- 
barb, the  raw  silk  of  the  Inner  Land,  are  the 
sources  by  which  England's  people  live  and 
maintain  life.  For  the  fault  of  one  man,  Lord 
Napier,  must  the  livelihood  of  the  whole  Nation 
be  precipitately  cut  off  ?  .  .  .  I  cannot  bring 
my  mind  to  bear  it."1  And  this  tone  of  con- 
tempt and  insult  continued  without  exception 
or  relief.  What  could  Western  Nations  do  in  the 
face  of  it  ?  They  could  quietly  go  home  and 
abandon  trade  with  China  save  on  terms  of  in- 
feriority. China  wondered  that  they  so  persist- 
ently refused  to  do  this.  But  the  passion  for 
trade,  and  the  trade  God  who  rules  the  diplo- 
macy of  nations  was  fiercer  even  in  Western 
Nations  than  among  the  Chinese.  They  would 
trade,  and  they  would  trade  on  terms  of  self- 
respect,  and  to  accomplish  that  in  this  century 
could  only  be  done  by  war,  and  war  that  meant 
to  China  disgrace,  the  withdrawal  of  insult,  the 
abandonment  of  her  traditional  attitude  and  the 
destruction  of  her  isolated  seclusion,  and  that 
could  only  leave  with  her  ruling  class  the  sting 
of  defeat,  the  sense  of  doom  and  a  bitter  hatred 
of  that  restless,  encroaching  force  that  tears  men 
away  from  the  slavery  of  the  past  and  thrusts 

1  Wells  Williams'  Middle  Kingdom,  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  468,  472. 
47 


Missions  and  Politics 

them  out  into  the  future,  like  Abraham,  not 
knowing  whither  they  go. 

This  roughly  is  the  general  situation,  and  so 
much  of  history  has  been  set  forth  in  it  because 
in  China  every  present  situation  contains  the  past 
as  its  chief  element.  What  is  to  grow  out  of  this 
situation  ?  Whither  is  God  leading  the  Chinese? 
Is  their  day  spent,  their  history  done,  or  is  there 
yet  hope  for  them  ? 

First,  there  is  no  hope  for  them  in  Confucian- 
ism. It  has  had  free  scope  for  twenty-five  cen- 
turies, and  while  it  has  accomplished  the  results 
that  have  been  recognized,  it  contains  absolutely 
no  hope  for  the  future.  Progress  is  impossible 
under  it.  It  ties  the  race  hand  and  foot  and 
flings  it  back  into  a  patriarchal  dotage.  As  to 
Buddhism,  while  its  superstitions  and  idols  sup- 
ply what  they  can  to  meet  the  irrepressible  spirit- 
ual needs  of  the  people,  its  priests,  as  Eitel  says, 
"Are  mostly  recruited  from  the  lowest  classes, 
and  one  finds  among  them  frequently  the  most 
wretched  specimens  of  humanity,  more  devoted 
to  opium  smoking  than  any  other  class  in  China. 
They  have  no  intellectual  tastes,  they  have  cen- 
turies ago  ceased  to  cultivate  the  study  of  San- 
scrit, they  know  next  to  nothing  about  the  his- 
tory of  their  own  religion,  living  together  mostly 

48 


China 

in  idleness,  and  occasionally  going  out  to  earn 
some  money  by  reading  litanies  for  the  dead,  or 
acting  as  exorcists  and  sorcerers  or  physicians. 
No  community  of  interest,  no  ties  of  social  life, 
no  object  of  generous  ambition,  beyond  the  sat- 
isfying of  those  wants  which  bind  them  to  the 
cloister,  diversify  the  monotonous  current  of  their 
daily  life,"  while  "the  people  as  a  whole  have 
no  respect  for  the  Buddhist  Church  and  habitu- 
ally sneer  at  the  Buddhist  priests."1  As  for  Tao- 
ism the  high  and  noble  views  of  Lao  Tse  have 
sunk  to  the  lowest  oracularism,  and  its  supersti- 
tions are  only  a  grade  below  those  of  Buddhism 
with  which  now  in  China  it  is  inextricably  inter- 
woven. The  most  pitiably  abject  human  being  I 
ever  saw  was  a  Taoist  priest,  with  long  matted 
hair  run  through  with  straws,  half  naked,  beg- 
ging in  the  streets  of  Peking.  In  her  own  reli- 
gions, there  is  no  hope  for  China. 

Nor  is  there  any  in  her  political  and  civil  insti- 
tutions. They  are  rotten  through  and  through, 
though  sufficient  for  her  old  life  and  isolation, 
but  she  is  not  allowed  her  old  life  and  isolation 
any  longer.  The  introduction  of  mathematics 
and  Western  sciences  and  even  questions  as 
to  the  Bible  into  the  competitive  examinations, 
the  throb  of  the  railway  past  the  graves  of  the 

1  Eitel's  Buddhism,  pp.  33,  34. 
49 


Missions  and  Politics 

sages,  the  profile  of  the  telegraph  against  the 
dragon  outline  of  the  hills,  the  hum  of  the  spindle 
in  the  cotton  mills,  and  engines  in  the  silk  fac- 
tories, and  the  ramifying  filaments  of  Western 
trade  introduce  conditions  for  which  the  old 
forms  and  the  old  officials  are  unfit.  It  will  be 
enough  if  they  can  keep  up  with  the  new  times. 
There  is  no  leading  in  them. 

And  although  we  believe  that  God  is  in  His 
heaven  and  all's  well  with  His  world,  and  that 
the  conduct  of  European  nations  in  China  at  the 
present  time  will  in  the  end  work  into  His  mighty 
purposes,  and  indeed  is  working  into  those  pur- 
poses even  now,  this  seems  to  me  a  dishearten- 
ing quarter  to  which  to  turn  for  help  and  hope. 
Mr.  Curzon  may  entertain  the  curious  fancy  of  a 
secular  redemption.  "The  best  hope  of  salva- 
tion for  the  old  and  moribund  in  Asia,  the  wisest 
lessons  for  the  emancipated  and  new,  are  still  to 
be  derived  from  the  ascendency  of  British  char- 
acter, and  under  the  shelter,  where  so  required, 
of  British  dominion."1  But  where  is  the  redemp- 
tive power  that  has  regenerated  Hong  Kong  and 
Singapore  ?  And  how  much  salvation  has  come 
to  Shanghai  from  Foochow  Road  ?  Has  French 
rule  brought  hope  to  Tonquin  ?    Has  Spain  given 

1  Curzon's  Problems  of  the  Far  East,  new  ed.,  p.  15. 
50 


China 

help  to  the  Philippines  ?  Wherein  has  Borneo  been 
redeemed  by  the  Dutch  or  Bokhara  by  the  Rus- 
sians ?  If  the  real  partition  of  China  comes,  as  it 
may,  and  Russia  takes  Manchuria  and  Chili,  and 
Germany  Shantung,  and  England  the  valleys  of 
the  Yangtse  and  the  West  Rivers,  and  the  whole 
body  and  heart  of  China  lying  between,  and 
France  Hainan  and  the  southern  section  of 
Kwangtung  and  Kwang  Si  and  Yunnan,1— it  will 
mean  good  I  am  sure,  though  what  an  ignomini- 
ous end  of  the  Middle  and  Heavenly  Kingdom  it 
will  be! — but  it  is  not  the  direction  in  which  one 
turns  for  help  or  hope,  especially  with  the  sounds 
of  trade  so  filling  the  air,  the  clamor  of  the  navies 
and  the  shouts  of  Prince  Henry  preaching  the 
gospel  of  the  consecrated  person  of  the  queer 
Emperor  of  Germany,  and  William's  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs  saying  in  the  Reichstag  "that 
Germany  could  no  longer  exclude  herself  from 
sharing  the  promising  new  markets.  That  the 
time  had  passed  when  Germany  was  content  to 
look  on  and  see  other  countries  dividing  the  world 
among  them,  while  Germany  contented  herself 
with  a  place  in  heaven.  The  intentions  of  Ger- 
many toward  China  were  benevolent  .  .  . 
but  Germany  could  not  permit  China  to  treat 

1  Martin's  Cycle  of  Cathay,  p.  399. 
51 


Missions  and  Politics 

German  interests  as  subordinate  to  those  of  other 
nations."  And  the  speaker  concluded,  the  cable 
dispatch  said,  "amid  long  and  loud  applause  by 
saying  '  We  will  not  put  other  people  in  the  shade, 
but  we  claim  for  ourselves  a  place  in  the  sun.'" 
That  was  a  pertinent  prayer  of  the  Queen's 
Jubilee: — 

"  If  drunk  with  sight  of  power  we  loose 
Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe — 
Such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use 
Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  Law — 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget. 

"  For  heathen  heart  that  puts  her  trust 
In  reeking  tube  and  iron  shard — ■ 
All  valiant  dust  that  builds  on  dust, 
And  guarding  calls  not  Thee  to  guard — 
For  frantic  boast  and  foolish  word, 
Thy  mercy  on  Thy  people,  Lord." 

Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  tumult  of  the 
Captains  and  the  Kings  seems  to  the  people  to  be 
the  force  supreme.  And  it  may  make  very  visi- 
ble changes  on  the  maps  and  create  new  names 
for  the  histories  and  for  a  generation  seem  to  be 
controlling  character  and  life,  but  the  long  view 
of  history  and  the  deeper  insight  will  lead  us  to 
look  further  still  for  any  permanent  source  of 
help  and  hope  for  China.  For  those  forces  are 
the  greatest  which  most  affect  character.  Con- 
fucianism is  so  powerful  and  so  hopeless  because 
of  its  enormous  influence  upon  the  character  of 

52 


China 

the  people.  Determinations  of  territorial  bound- 
aries and  assignments  of  political  authority  are 
minor  and  insignificant  in  comparison  with  the 
forces  which  run  down  to  the  roots  of  personal 
life.  And  of  these  forces  time  will  show  that 
none  is  running  deeper  or  spreading  more  widely 
than  Christianity. 

Christianity  was  first  brought  to  China  by  the 
Nestorians  early  in  the  sixth  century,  and  the 
only  known  traces  of  their  work  are  preserved 
in  the  famous  Nestorian  tablet  found  in  the  Prov- 
ince of  Shansi  in  1725.  The  Roman  Catholics 
began  their  work  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
with  glorious  devotion,  and  some  readiness  to  tem- 
porize, to  flatter,  to  dissemble  and  to  deceive. 
Their  work  grew  greatly,  winning  at  last  the 
favor  of  the  Emperor  Kanghi  until  Clement  XI. 
joined  issue  with  him  over  ancestral  worship  and 
some  other  ceremonies,  and  then  the  missionaries 
were  expelled  from  the  country.  From  1767  to 
1820  they  were  persecuted,  ordered  to  leave  or 
slain,  but  continued  apparently  to  conduct  them- 
selves in  the  manner  of  which  one  of  their  own 
number,  Pere  Repa  complained,  saying,  "If  our 
European  missionaries  in  China  would  conduct 
themselves  with  less  ostentation '  and  accommo- 

1  Vid.  also  Monseigneur  Reynoud's  Another  China,  p.  39,  which  is  a  Ro- 
man Catholic  view. 

.53 


Missions  and  Politics 

date  their  manners  to  persons  of  all  ranks  and 
conditions,  the  number  of  converts  would  be  im- 
mensely increased.  Their  garments  are  made  of 
the  richest  materials  .  .  .  and  as  they  never 
mix  with  the  people,  they  make  but  few  con- 
verts." As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  they  have 
made  many  converts  and  doubtless  many  good 
Christians.  Protestant  Missions  began  with  Mor- 
rison in  1807,  and  together  with  Roman  Catholic 
Missions  were  recognized  and  legalized  by  the 
treaties  made  after  the  war  of  i860.  Article  VIII. 
of  the  British  treaty  reads  "The  Christian  religion 
as  professed  by  Protestants  or  Roman  Catholics 
inculcates  the  practice  of  virtue  and  teaches  men 
to  do  as  they  would  be  done  by.  Persons  teach- 
ing it  or  professing  it,  therefore,  shall  alike  be 
entitled  to  the  protection  of  the  Chinese  authori- 
ties; nor  shall  any  such,  peaceably  pursuing  their 
calling,  and  not  offending  against  the  laws,  be 
persecuted  or  interfered  with." 

Thus  introduced  and  recognized  two  things 
have  prevented  Christianity's  exercise  of  its  full 
power  One  has  been  the  difficulty  of  adjusting 
it  to  the  Chinese  mind  in  such  a  way  as  not 
to  commit  it  to  anything  unessential  which  is 
repugnant  to  the  Chinese  mind,  and  to  fit  it  pre- 
cisely to  the  fundamental  spiritual  needs  and  ca- 

54 


China 

pacities  of  the  race.  I  asked  one  of  the  ablest 
missionaries  in  China,  what  were  the  great  prob- 
lems  of  the  work  in  China,  and  he  replied  in- 
stantly, "They  are  one — How  to  present  Christ 
to  the  Chinese  mind."  There  is  nothing  else  on 
earth  like  that  mind,  so  full  of  distortions,  of 
atrophies,  of  abnormalities,  of  curious  twists 
and  deficiencies,  and  how  to  avoid  all  unneces- 
sary prejudice  and  difficulty,  and  to  make  use  of 
prepared  capacity  and  notion  so  as  to  gain  for  the 
Christian  message  the  most  open  and  unbiased 
reception,  is  a  problem  unsolved  as  yet  and  be- 
yond any  of  our  academic  questionings  here. 
For  example,  the  Chinese  idea  of  filial  piety  has 
in  it  much  that  is  Christian  and  noble  and  true, 
and  yet  much  that  is  absurd  and  untrue.  To 
recognize  and  avail  of  the  former  aspects  and  not 
to  alienate  and  anger  in  stripping  off  the  latter,  is 
one  phase  of  this  problem.  Where  is  there  one 
more  wonderfully  interesting  and  more  baffling  ? 
The  second  thing  that  has  hampered  Chris- 
tianity has  been  its  political  entanglements.  The 
last  few  months  have  given  a  characteristic  illus- 
tration of  this.  The  murder  of  two  German 
missionaries  in  Shantung  province  was  at  once 
made  the  pretext  of  seizing  a  bay  with  its  pro- 
tecting fortifications,  and  bade  fair  to  precipitate 

55 


Missions  and  Politics 

the  dismemberment  of  the  Chinese  Empire.  Is 
it  wonderful  that  the  Chinese  distrust  the  char- 
acter of  the  Mission  movement,  are  sceptical  as 
to  its  non-political  character,  and  view  Chris- 
tianity with  suspicion?  China  has  disliked  the 
Western  Nations  from  the  start.  Their  overbear- 
ing willfulness,  their  remorseless  aggression,  their 
humiliating  victories,  their  very  peccable  diplo- 
macy have  all  strengthened  her  dislike.  The  un- 
fortunate occasion  of  the  first  war  which  brought 
Great  Britain  forward  as  the  defender  of  the 
wretched  opium  traffic,  which  the  Chinese  Cen- 
tral Government  at  least  was  making  sincere 
efforts  to  suppress,  placed  the  Western  Nations 
in  the  position  of  supporting  by  arms  what  China 
knew  to  be  morally  wrong.  The  general  bear- 
ing of  the  foreign  commercial  class,  ignorant  of 
the  language,  of  the  people  and  of  their  preju- 
dices has  increased  the  anti-foreign  feeling  of  the 
Chinese  yet  more.  The  charge  that  the  mission- 
ary movement  as  a  religious  movement  is  respon- 
sible for  the  anti-foreign  feeling  is  fantastic  and 
it  is  not  supported  by  facts.  Missions  have  made 
a  hundred  friends  to  every  foe. 

The  missionary  would  undoubtedly  in  any 
event  have  had  to  share  some  of  this  hatred, 
as  a  member  of  one  of  the  objectionable  na- 

56 


China 

tionalities;  but  the  Chinese  are  capable  of  dis- 
tinctions, and  would  soon  have  learned  that  the 
Mission  movement  was  sharply  distinct  from  all 
political  bearings,  if  indeed  it  had  been  so.  I  But 
from  the  beginning  of  foreign  intercourse,  the 
trader  and  the  missionary  have  been  classed  to- 
gether. The  same  rights  have  been  claimed  for 
each,  and  the  claim  was  enforced  by  war  in  the 
case  of  the  trader,  and  the  consequent  treaties 
included  the  missionary.  Ever  since,  through 
the  legations,  missionary  rights  under  the  treaties 
have  perhaps  been  the  chief  matter  of  business, 
and  outrages  on  missionaries  have  been  followed 
by  demands  for  reparation  and  indemnity.  No 
Government  was  willing  to  surrender  its  duty  to 
protect  its  citizens,  and  even  if  the  missionaries 
had  refused  protection,  it  would  have  been  forced 
on  them  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  traditional 
prestige,  and  defending  traders  and  trade  inter- 
ests from  assault.    { 

In  consequence,  the  missionary  work  has  been 
unable  to  appear  as  the  propaganda  of  a  kingdom 
that  is  not  of  this  world.  The  Chinese  officials 
are  unable,  with  few  exceptions,  to  conceive  of 
it  except  as  a  part  of  the  political  scheme  of 
Western  Nations  to  acquire  influence  in  China, 
and  to  subvert  the  Government  and  the  principles 

57 


Missions  and  Politics 

of  loyalty  on  which  it  rests.  "It  is  our  opinion 
that  foreign  missionaries  are  in  very  truth  the 
source  whence  springs  all  trouble  in  China,"  so 
says  one  of  the  Chinese  "Blue  Books."  "For-  * 
eigners  come  to  China  from  a  distance  of  several 
ten  thousands  of  miles,  and  from  about  ten  dif- 
ferent countries  with  only  two  objects  in  view; 
namely,  trade  and  religious  propagandism.  With 
the  former  they  intend  to  gradually  deprive  China 
of  her  wealth,  and  with  the  latter  they  likewise 
seek  to  steal  away  the  hearts  of  her  people.  The 
ostensible  pretext  they  put  forward  is,  the  culti- 
vation of  friendly  relations:  what  their  hidden 
purpose  is,  is  unfathomable."1  Even  a  Roman 
Catholic  priest,  and  his  people  are  the  worst  of- 
fenders in  this,  writes:  "Whence  comes  this 
obstinate  determination  to  reject  Christianity  ?  It 
is  not  religious  fanaticism,  for  no  people  are  so 
far  gone  as  the  Chinese  in  scepticism  and  indiffer- 
ence. One  may  be  a  disciple  of  Confucius  or  of 
Lao  Tse,  Mussulman  or  Buddhist,  the  Chinese 
Government  does  not  regard  it.  It  is  only  against 
the  Christian  religion  it  seeks  to  defend  itself.  It 
sees  all  Europe  following  on  the  heels  of  the 
Apostles  of  Christ,  Europe  with  her  ideas,  her 
civilization,  and  with  that  it  will  have  absolutely 

1  Michie's  China  and  Christianity,  p.  101. 

58 


China 

nothing  to  do,  being  rightly  or  wrongly  satisfied 
with  the  ways  of  its  fathers." l 

Out  of  a  very  profound  ignorance  of  the  sub- 
ject of  Missions  in  China,  Mr.  Henry  Norman, 
after  alluding  to  "the  minute  results  of  good  and 
the  considerable  results  of  harm  "  they  produce, 
says,  "At  any  rate,  in  considering  the  future  of  t 
China,  the  missionary  influence  cannot  be  countedl 
upon  for  any  good."2  I  believe  that  its  affilia- 
tions with  the  political  and  commercial  schemes 
of  the  West,  which  are  Mr.  Norman's  deities,  and 
the  way  France  and  Germany  make  it  a  cat's-paw 
are  seriously  hindering  it  from  doing  its  purely 
spiritual  work;  but  even  with  this  hindrance  and 
the  difficulty  of  a  wise  adjustment  to  the  Chinese 
mind,  with  its  aptitudes  and  incapacities,  it  is  the 
most  penetrating  and  permeating  force  working 
in  China  to  lead  her  on  to  the  new  day,  and  its 
messengers  are  the  heralds  of  the  dawn.  "Be- 
lieve nobody  when  he  sneers  at  them,"  said 
Colonel  Denby.  "The  man  is  simply  not 
posted."  The  1,300  scholars,  whose  memorial  I 
have  already  quoted,  know  better  than  to  sneer. 
"Every  province  is  full  of  chapels,"  they  wrote, 
"whilst  we  have  only  one  temple  in  each  county 

1  Michie's  Missionaries  in  China,  p.  67. 
3 Norman's  Peoples  and  Politics  of  the  Far  East,  pp.  280-282,  304-308. 

59 


Missions  and  Politics 

for  our  sage  Confucius.     Is  this  not  painful  ?    Let 
religious  instruction  be  given  in   each  county. 
Let  all  the  charitable  institutions  help.     Let  all  the 
unowned  temples  and  charity  guilds  be  made  into 
temples  of  the  Confucian  religion,  and  thus  make 
the  people  good,  and  stop  the  progress  of  strange 
doctrines."    When   Bishop   Moule,   who  is  still 
living  at  Hangchow,  came  to  China,  there  were 
only  forty  Protestants  in  the  Empire.     Now  there 
are  80,000,  and  in  addition  the  multitudes  enrolled 
in  the  Church  of  Rome.     They  are  erring  who 
are  not  reckoning  with  the  powerful  work  the 
Christian  Church  is  doing  amid  the  foundations 
of  the  Chinese  Empire.     She  blows  few  trumpets 
from  the  housetops.     She  boasts  with  no  naval 
displays.     Her  trust  is  not  put  in  reeking  tube  and 
iron  shard.     Guarding  she  calls  on  God  to  guard, 
and  under  His  guarding  is  doing  at  the  roots  of 
Chinese  life  the  work  of  the  new  creation,  and 
out  of  her  work  a  Church  is  rising  of  a  new  sort. 
It  will  have  its  own  heresies  and  trials,  but  it  will 
have  elements  of  power  which  have  belonged  to 
none  of  God's  other  peoples;  and  I  think  it  will 
lean  back  on  the  rock  of  the  rule  of  the  Living 
God  which  we  are  abandoning  for  the  rule  of  our 
own  wills.     And  whether  the  Chinese  race  shall 
serve  the  future  as  one  nation  or  as  the  peaceful 

60 


China 

and  submissive  fragments  of  a  once  mighty  Em- 
pire, this  much  is  true:— the  service  they  will  ren- 
der will  have  been  touched  by  Christ  whose 
movement  will  go  on  "  until  all  the  cities,  towns, 
villages  and  hamlets  of  that  vast  Empire  have  the 
teacher  and  professor  of  religion  living  in  them, 
until  their  children  are  taught,  their  liberties  un- 
derstood, their  rights  assured,  their  poor  cared 
for,  their  literature  purified,  and  their  condition 
bettered  in  this  world  by  the  full  revelation  of 
another  made  known  to  them,"1  out  of  which 
One  has  come  greater  than  Confucius,  greater 
than  Lao  Tse,  to  dwell  among  men  and  be  their 
Living  King. 

1  Wells  Williams'  Middle  Kingdom,  Vol.  ii.,  p.  371. 


61 


r 


OUR  BOOKS  ON  CHINA 


B>    the    REV.    ARTHUR    H.    SMITH,   D.D. 

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Tenth  Thousand. 

Chinese  Characteristics.  With  sixteen  illustrations  from  photo- 
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A  new  edition  with  additional  illustrations  and  specially  drawn 
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By  the  REV.  W.  A.  P.  MARTIN,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

President  of  the  Imperial  Tungwen  College,  Peking. 

Fifth  Thousand. 

A  Cycle  of  Cathay,  or  China,  South  and  North.  With  Personal 
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and  Native  Drawings,  a  Map  and  an  Index.  8vo,  decorated 
cloth $2.00 

The  Chinese.  Their  Education,  Philosophy  and  Letters.  (Hanlin 
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Hanlin  Papers,  Second  Series.     i2mo,  cloth $1.25 

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By    PROF.    ISAAC    TAYLOR    HEADLAND. 

Chinese  Mother  Goose  Rhymes.  Translated  and  Ilkistrated 
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quarto,  boards.    Fully  Illustrated.     160  pages $1.00 

By  REV.  IRA  M.  CONDIT,  D.D. 

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By  REV.  T.  M.  MORRIS. 

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By  REV.  GILBERT  REID,M.A.,  Founder  of  the  Mis- 

sion  to  the  Higher  Classes. 
Glances  at  China.    Illustrated.     i2mo,  cloth 80c. 

Chips  from  Cathay.    In  preparation. 

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Pictures  of  Southern  China.    With  80  Illus.    8vo,  cloth.  .$4.20 


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